Dr Sketchy at Fontaine's DJ Set List 12 December 2015

/ Stripper, Miss Sata Lyte, in her dressing room, 1962. Photo by Diane Arbus /

After an ultra-lengthy absence, Saturday 12 December 2015 found me back behind the DJ decks for Dr Sketchy. Checking my records, the last time I DJ’d at a Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School (“where life drawing meets cabaret”) was May 2014. Since then, Dr Sketchy has continued at various venues after the residency at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern ended but none of them had DJ’ing facilities so my services weren’t required.  Now it looks like Dr Sketchy has re-located to the bijou Mondo Tiki basement Bamboo Lounge of Fontaine’s in Dalston (hopefully permanently!) so happily I was back on board.

To paraphrase my patron saint Jayne Mansfield, it felt divoon to be DJ’ing at Dr Sketchy’s again. For one thing, I had accumulated a backlog of bump’n’grind tittyshaker stripper music I was dying to play and I finally had a context for it! The plush and intimate Polynesian surroundings of the Bamboo Lounge provided the ideal setting for Dr Sketchy. Intoxicated by Fontaine’s potent cocktails, the enthusiastic sold-out crowd were ripe for an afternoon of adult "blue" humour, anything-goes drawing, cheeky onstage virtual nudity and daytime drinking.

Best of all was the glittering line-up of talent on the bill. Effervescent mistress of the ukulele Tricity Vogue was the tightly-corseted, blue-wigged mistress of ceremonies. A real trooper, Tricity battled-on despite being struck down with a cold and laryngitis. She told me at one point she had two more gigs later that day where she had to sing.  With her hoarse and raspy croak of a voice, I helpfully proposed Tricity change her act into a tribute to Marianne Faithfull.  

The two featured models and performers for this Dr Sketchy were Marianne Cheesecake and Trixie Malicious.  Two equally great burlesque artists with completely different contrasting personas and approaches,  which inspired the music I played for their poses. I’d never had the pleasure of working with Trixie – aka The Blonde Who Really Does Have More Fun – before. She evokes platinum blonde 1950s rock’n’roll bad girls (think bullet bra'd Russ Meyer starlets or the vixens from sordid pulp novel front covers come to life). Tracks by sex bombs like Mamie Van Doren, Jayne Mansfield and Brigitte Bardot, The Cramps and the opening theme tune from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! therefore felt obligatory.

Dr Sketchy veteran Marianne Cheesecake, meanwhile, conjures a classical 1920s or 30s Folies Bergère / Art Deco vibe (think Josephine Baker-meets-Anna May Wong). One of the advantages of DJ’ing at Dr Sketchy as opposed to, say, Lobotomy Room or Cockabilly is that I can drop the volume and play quiet, eerie, delicate songs and create a whole different ambiance.  For Marianne’s poses, I went for a ghostly spine-tingling David Lynch-ian feel: multiple versions of “Blue Velvet” and ghostly, heartbroken torch ballads by the likes of long-forgotten 1950s cool jazz chanteuse Linda Lawson and the Nico-like strains of San Francisco punk band The Nuns’ icy front-woman Jennifer Miro. When Trixie and Marianne posed ensemble at the end, I cranked-up Little Richard’s “The Girl Can’t Help It” (a Dr Sketchy staple) and Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” (it was, after all, the lead-up to Christmas and it occurred to me I hadn’t packed any campy festive tunes! Luckily that song was already on one of Eartha’s greatest hits compilations in my bag).

/ Trixie Malicious and Marianne Cheesecake. Photo swiped from Facebook! /

Noteworthy date: 11 January 2016 represents the first anniversary of the death of the truly statuesque and Amazonian Swedish-Italian actress Anita Ekberg (29 September 1931 – 11 January 2015). In truth few of Ekberg’s 1950s Hollywood films are memorable (with the exception maybe of the lurid 1958 exploitation B-movie Screaming Mimi in which Ekberg plays a stripper menaced by a serial killer). Her appearance in Federico Fellini’s decadent masterpiece La Dolce Vita (1960), though – frolicking in Rome’s Trevi fountain - ensured Ekberg immortality.  I wonder if this revealing glamour shot squeaked past the Hollywood censors in the 1950s? (It's got to be said - those are great raspberries!).

Love Song of the Nile - Korla Pandit
Wimoweh - Yma Sumac
Kismiaz - The Cramps
Quiet Village - Martin Denny
Monkey Bird - The Revels
La-bas c'est naturel - Serge Gainsbourg
Mau Mau - The Fabulous Wailers
Lust - Bas Sheva
Coconut Water - Robert Mitchum
Don' Wanna - Wanda Jackson
Go Calypso - Mamie Van Doren
Beatnik - The Champs
Fujiyama Mama - Annisteen Allen
Vesuvius - The Revels
One Monkey Don't Stop No Show - Big Maybelle
Honey Rock - Barney Kessel
Tonight You Belong to Me - Patience and Prudence
Little Things Mean a Lot - Jayne Mansfield
Life is But a Dream - The Harptones
I Want Your Love - The Cruisers
Night Scene - The Rumblers
Bombora - The Original Surf-aris
Drive Daddy Drive - Little Sylvia
Sometimes I Wish I Had A Gun - Mink Stole
Tough Chick - The Rockbusters
Beat Girl - ZZ und der Maskers
What's Inside a Girl? The Cramps
Harley Davidson - Brigitte Bardot
It's a Gas - The Rumblers
Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The Bossweeds
Ooh! Look-a There Ain't She Pretty? Bill Haley and His Comets
The Girl Who Invented Rock'n'Roll - Mamie Van Doren
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
No Good Lover - Mickey and Sylvia
Sheba - Johnny and The Hurricanes
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Sittin' in the Balcony - Masaaki Hirao
Love Potion # 9 - Nancy Sit
How Much Love Can One Heart Hold? Joe Perkins and The Rookies
Boss - The Rumblers
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Night Flight - The Viscounts
Hiasmina - Jean Seberg
Blue Velvet - Isabella Rossellini
Where Flamingos Fly - Linda Lawson
Lazy - The Nuns
Blue Velvet - Lana Del Rey
Perdita - Rubber City
I'm a Woman - Peggy Lee
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt
Mack the Knife - Hildegard Knef
La Javanaise - Juliette Greco
Chattanooga Choo-Choo - Denise Darcel

Further reading:

The next Dr Sketchy at Fontaine's is likely to be circa Valentine's Day in February 2016. I'll post the details once they're confirmed.

Upcoming Lobotomy Room-related antics for your social calendar:

Hey! Did you know about Fontaine’s free weekly film club? As winter draws in, how better to break the monotony on a Wednesday night than watch a free film, drink cocktails and eat canapés in the plush and intimate environs of Fontaine’s basement Bamboo Lounge? As host and DJ of the regular monthly Mondo Trasho punkabilly club night Lobotomy Room (last Friday of every month downstairs in the Bamboo Lounge!), I – Graham Russell - will occasionally crash the proceedings and screen a rancid film of my choice!

The featured presentation this (Wednesday 27 January) month will be the ultra-lurid 1964 juvenile delinquent exploitation psychodrama Kitten with a Whip (1964) – starring quintessential atomic-era sex kitten-gone-berserk Ann-Margret. This sleazy little black and white B-movie urgently poses the question: why do the sweetest kittens have the sharpest claws?  Fresh from cavorting with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas, red-headed vixen Ann-Margret plays a vicious teenage sociopath escaped from her high-security juvenile detention centre – who then takes hostage and torments straight-laced local politician John Forsythe in his palatial suburban dream house. (Yes – a cardigan-wearing and still dark-haired John Forsythe as in Dynasty’s silver fox Blake Carrington). From there, Ann-Margret’s gang of thug friends turn up – and things just get wilder!

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to catch this should-be cult classick and genuine curiosity: Kitten with a Whip is not available on DVD in this country and never crops up on TV. It’s got it all: a genuinely feral wild child performance from Ann-Margret at the height of her bad girl beauty, dramatic shadowy film noir photography, a finger- snapping Henry Mancini-style cool jazz score and cringe-worthy faux beatnik hepcat dialogue galore. (Samples: “Ooh! Everything’s so creamy! Kill me quick, I never had it so good!” “How come you think you’re such a smoky something when you’re so nothing painted blue?” “Now cool it, you creep, and co-exist!” “Hands off, buster! Don’t you ever bruise me ... God knows what I might do to you if you ever bruise me.”).

Perhaps the highest compliment of all? Kitten with a Whip is a sentimental favourite of John Waters’. (In 2011 he introduced a screening of it at Anthology Film Archives in New York).  He’s described it as “almost like a Russ Meyer movie, an early one, only without as much tits” and reminisced, “Divine and I saw this movie together, definitely. Several times, actually. And he loved it, too. It was very much a big influence on us. And in 1964, I was a senior in high school, so on LSD, so angry, so insane, and so it came at one of the most insane periods of my life as far as being a disturbed teenager. I mean, we wanted to be Ann-Margret! Divine was my Kitten with a Whip, in a weird way.”

Facebook events page

/ Look deep into my eyes ... you will come to the next Lobotomy Room ... /

Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when LOBOTOMY ROOM returns to the subterranean Bamboo Lounge of Art Deco vice palace Fontaine’s! Friday 29 January!

LOBOTOMY ROOM! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! A spectacle of decadence! Bad Music for Bad People! A Mondo Trasho evening of Beat, Beat Beatsville Beatnik Rock’n’Roll! Rockabilly Psychosis! Wailing Rhythm and Blues! Twisted Tittyshakers! Punk Cretin Hops! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs The Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell (of Dr. Sketchy London and Cockabilly notoriety). Expect desperate stabs from the jukebox jungle! Savage rhythms to make you writhe and rock! Now with vintage erotica projected on the wall for your adult viewing pleasure!

Admission: gratuit - that’s French for FREE!

Lobotomy Room: Faster. Further. Filthier.
It’s sleazy. It’s grubby. It’s trashy - you’ll love it!
A tawdry good time guaranteed!

Facebook events page

Read about all the previous antics at Lobotomy Rooms to date here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here , here, here, here and here.

Lobotomy Room 27 November 2015 at Fontaine's DJ Set List

As threatened on the Facebook events page...

Witness forbidden voodoo rites and adult situations - at LOBOTOMY ROOM!

Yes! Leave all sense of shame and propriety at the door - when LOBOTOMY ROOM returns to its new home, the subterranean Bamboo Lounge of Art Deco vice palace Fontaine's! Friday 27 November!

At last - a club night for the hillbilly beau monde! LOBOTOMY ROOM! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! A spectacle of decadence for the permissive Continentally-minded! A Mondo Trasho evening of Beat, Beat Beatsville Beatnik Rock’n’Roll! Rockabilly Psychosis! Wailing Rhythm and Blues! Twisted Tittyshakers! Punk Cretin Hops! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs The Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell (of Dr Sketchy and Cockabilly notoriety). Expect desperate stabs from the jukebox jungle! Savage rhythms to make you writhe and rock! Now with added vintage erotica projected on the wall for your adult viewing pleasure!

Admission: gratuit - that's French for FREE!

Lobotomy Room: Faster. Further. Filthier.

It's sleazy. It's grubby. It's trashy - you'll love it!

A tawdry good time guaranteed!

I won’t lie. It’s been an agonising, anxiety-ridden and bumpy recent few months characterised by unemployment woes. In fact I’ve been a full-on freaked-out casualty since summer 2015. In September I was made redundant at my then-current job in a painful re-structure. (I’d been there just under two years so – as human resources gleefully pointed out – I wasn’t eligible for any kind of redundancy package). I swung hard into frantically applying for jobs and liaising with recruitment agencies – and within a week of getting officially made redundant, had scored a new job! Phew! The new job initially felt like a godsend.  But by about the third or fourth week it quickly became apparent it was not a good fit. In fact I was filled with overwhelming anxiety and dread on a daily basis. By about the end of the second month, the worst case scenario happened: I was officially informed I hadn’t survived the six month probationary period and they wouldn’t be keeping me on. It was a pretty crushing blow to be plunged into unemployment and financial uncertainty again.

Since the end of November (in fact, within days of getting the news) I landed a temp job and I’ve been steadily temping since. This has been a positive development: it’s kept me afloat and helped me claw back some confidence. It’s also demonstrated that – much as I dislike the financial insecurity - I can survive by temping if absolutely necessary. On Monday 7 December I had a job interview for a new permanent role. By Wednesday 9 December the recruitment agent phoned to inform me I was successful. It looks like I’ll be starting the new job on 11 January 2016. It’ll be another six month probationary period and I’ve been burnt before – but it is reason to be optimistic.  Hopefully I’ll be back on track soon and the past few months will just be a blip in my life.

27 November represented the last Lobotomy Room of 2015. (Lobotomy Room is the last Friday of every month and the last Friday of December is 25 December –Santa Claus’ birthday!). Considering I’d been fired earlier that very week, my nerves were still well and truly shot. Necking beer and DJ’ing some angry punk and rockabilly tunes in the dimly-lit Bamboo Room certainly helped – it just needed more people in attendance! If there was ever a time to show me some support, this was it. Since re-locating Lobotomy Room to its new permanent home downstairs at Fontaine’s in summer 2015, I’ve lost every single regular I’d gradually built up over the years. It’s a kick in the teeth, but the Bamboo Lounge of Fontaine’s is the ideal home for my vision of Lobotomy Room. Hip boss lady Emerald Fontaine encourages me to crank-up my most putrid musical selections loud. It’s got Mondo Tiki Polynesian decor. It’s in Dalston (well, the bit that bleeds into Stoke Newington). And it’s got the most beautiful big movie screen (bordered by two silver-sprayed palm trees either side) for me to project grainy vintage erotica (of the boob-tastic Russ Meyer / Bettie Page-burlesk-Teaserama variety and the Athletic Model Guild baby-oiled guys-wrestling-in-posing-pouches beefcake homo porn – so something for everybody!). Difficult as it is, I’m gritting my teeth and soldiering on and just hoping there is some new hip Beat Generation out there hungry for kicks and ready to embrace what I’m laying down.  Anyway, later on, some loyal friends did turn up (and earned my eternal gratitude): Mal (fellow DJ and my partner in crime at Cockabilly) and Chris (potentially better known to some of you under his drag name – Baby Lame).

/ Mal corrupting Pee-Wee Herman /



/ Chris, Elizabeth and Richard /

/ Fierce! Incandescent rhythm and blues queen Tina Turner in the seventies. Did anyone ever look better in zebra print? /

The night before Lobotomy Room Bold Soul Sister extraordinaire Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock on 26 November 1939) turned 76. I venerate the iconic bewigged rhythm and blues tigress and Tina’s music (especially her sixties R&B material) is a perennial Lobotomy Room (and Cockabilly) staple. Needless to say I played some Ike’n’Tina, but also a track from Turner’s second solo album Acid Queen (1975) - her gender-fucked version of The Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb", to be precise. (Tina’s actual first solo album is the weird obscurity from 1974 Tina Turns The Country On! on which she tackles country and western music by the likes of Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson. It’s never been issued on CD). The record was clearly meant to capitalise on Tina’s wild, hair-tossing appearance in the role of Acid Queen in the berserk 1975 Ken Russell film Tommy. It’s billed as a solo album but strictly speaking Tina was still with Ike and The Ike and Tina Turner Revue at the time (the turbulent royal couple of rhythm and blues broke up in 1976). Acid Queen sees Turner dabbling with white hard rock cover versions (she gives songs by The Rolling Stones, The Who and Led Zeppelin a sustained feline attack), anticipating the musical direction of her later much more commercially successful comeback career in the eighties. Acid Queen is no lost classic: it’s strange, patchy and not entirely successful. The production is frequently tacky (there are disco flourishes here and there) and Tina is backed by jaded generic seventies studio musicians. (Fun fact: one of the backing singers cooing behind Tina is Kim Carnes of “Bette Davis Eyes” infamy! Her raspy tones are instantly recognisable on certain tracks. Bring back the Ikettes, I say). Tina, though, is in ferocious voice, sounding exultant and liberated throughout Acid Queen. In fact she sings the hell out of it. All hail Tina Turner!

Meanwhile, Turner’s rhythm and blues contemporary the fabulous Little Richard turned 83 on 5 December. The Bronze Liberace, Georgia Peach and simultaneous King and Queen of Rock’n’Roll was born Richard Wayne Penniman on 5 December 1932. I revere Little Richard as the freakiest, queerest and most flamboyant of rock music’s early architects. Beloved by John Waters (the inspiration for Waters’ signature sleazy little pencil-line moustache), Richard’s essential masterpiece “The Girl Can’t Help It” manages to be synonymous with both Jayne Mansfield and Divine. Little Richard is now enjoying a hard-earned and hopefully serene retirement from performance but I managed to catch one of his last-ever gigs at Viva Las Vegas in 2013. It was a deeply odd but memorable experience. Read about it here.

A few days later came the announcement of the death of underground actress, cabaret artiste, Warhol muse and transgender pioneer Holly Woodlawn (born Haroldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl , 26 October 1946 - 6 December 2015) aged 69. In the late sixties Holly Woodlawn, along with Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis, was part of the trio of outrageous Andy Warhol Superstar drag queens who would inspire and get name-checked – and thus be immortalised - in Lou Reed's 1972 song “Walk on the Wild Side”. (Woodlawn outlived her friends Darling and Curtis by decades). The best way to honour Woodlawn’s memory is to watch her raw, vivacious and funny performance in the 1970 Paul Morrissey-directed film Trash. (I think you can find the whole film in its entirety on Youtube. Her Trash co-star Joe Dallesandro was by Woodlawn’s hospice bedside when she died). I only crossed paths with Woodlawn once, when she was in London in September 2007 to promote an exhibition of portraits painted of her by the artist Sadie Lee at The Drill Hall Theatre. (See photos from the day here). Author and raconteur Rupert Smith memorably interviewed Woodlawn onstage about her life and career. Physically she was already in failing health and virtually immobile, but Woodlawn gave a master class in charisma, wit and star power that afternoon. A mature, ravaged but resilient and still defiantly glamorous diva in a bouffant wig, she reminded me of a character out of a Pedro Almodovar film. When I was leaving I told her what a pleasure it had been to see her and Woodlawn vowed, “Oh, you haven't seen the last of me! I'll be back!" Sadly it wasn’t to be. Kudos in particular to Woodlawn’s long-time friend, New York’s earth mother / she-wolf of performance art Penny Arcade, who launched a spectacularly successful Gofundme campaign page that raised enough cash to ensure Holly’s final days were serene and dignified.

/ One less Warhol Superstar: Farewell Holly Woodlawn /

In other news, I’ve branched out - last month saw the debut of my Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies film club.  Fontaine’s already has a free weekly film club in the Bamboo Lounge on Tuesday nights. I’ve muscled in on their action and once a month I crash the proceedings and screen a rancid film of my own selection. Like I asked on Facebook: as winter draws in, how better to break the monotony on a Tuesday night than watch a free film, drink cocktails and eat snacks in the plush and intimate environs of Fontaine’s basement Bamboo Lounge? My emphasis will be on cult, queer, obscure curiosities. So far I’ve shown two films: on 24 November I inaugurated things with Marlene Dietrich in Seven Sinners (1940). That was a fun film to screen at Fontaine’s:  most of the action in Seven Sinners takes place within a Polynesian-style bamboo Tiki nightclub – and people were watching it within the Polynesian-style bamboo Tiki surroundings of the Bamboo Lounge!  It was a buzz to see the dreamy soft-focus close-ups of Dietrich’s veiled face framed between the silver palm trees.

/ Marlene Dietrich as good time girl nightclub chanteuse Bijou Blanche in Seven Sinners (1949) /

/ Glamorous attendees of Seven Sinners night: Sarah and Abigail /

/ Glamorous attendees of Seven Sinners night: Vera and Lauren /

On Tuesday 15 December I embraced the festive spirit with Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special (1988), the campiest and kitschiest of TV specials. In it, that bow-tied perverse brat Pee-Wee Herman welcomes a glittering selection of special guest stars (including Grace Jones, Little Richard, Cher and Joan Rivers) to the Playhouse and learns the true meaning of Christmas in the process. Attendance figures have been on the low side so far, but here’s hoping Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies catches on.

/ Grace Jones and Pee-Wee Herman in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special (1988). If you haven't already, read about my fleeting encounter with Grace Jones last month here /

I did have some depressing news to share: After thirteen years at 2 Hackney Road, earlier this month the truly great epicentre of East London gay bohemia (and home of Cockabilly) The George & Dragon in Shoreditch permanently padlocked its doors, another victim of soaring rents. But just as we were all mourning its demise, the management / brains behind The George & Dragon announced on Facebook this week they’ve been working hard behind the scenes and are opening a whole new venue – The Queen Adelaide further up on Hackney Road! This news counts as a genuine Christmas miracle. I still haven’t clapped eyes on the place, but it’s already my new favourite pub! Mal and I don’t know at this point whether Cockabilly will continue at The Queen Adelaide, but our fingers are crossed. (Read about The Queen Adelaide here). 

Finally, after a lengthy gap I’m back behind the decks at Dr Sketchy! The Anti-Art School (where life drawing meets cabaret) re-launched in the Bamboo Lounge of Fontaine’s on Saturday 12 December for a decadent afternoon of cocktails, art, burlesque - and me spinning tittyshakers and exotica. It looks like this will be a permanent new arrangement. A full Dr Sketchy scene report will follow separately! 

Sheba - Johnny and The Hurricanes
Night Scene - The Rumblers
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Beatnik - The Champs
Teardrops from My Eyes - Ruth Brown
Fever - Edith Massey
Eager Beaver Baby - Johnny Burnette
Drummin' Up A Storm - Sandy Nelson
Boots - Nero and The Gladiators
One Monkey Don't Stop No Show - Big Maybelle
Ain't That Good - George Kelly and Orchestra
I Wish I Were a Princess - Little Peggy March
Point of No Return - Gene McDaniels
Vesuvius - The Revels
Honey Rock - Barney Kessel
Rawhide - Link Wray
You're Driving Me Crazy - Dorothy Berry
Rock-A-Bop - Sparkle Moore
Booze Party - Three Aces and a Joker
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
Meu Bem Lollipop (My Boy Lollipop) - Wanderlea
Love Potion # 9 - Nancy Sit
Shanghaied - The Fabulous Wailers
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Margaya - The Fender Four
It's A Gas - The Rumblers
I'm a Woman - Peggy Lee
Twist Talk - Jack Hammer
Viens danser le twist - Johnny Halliday
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Peter Gunn Locomotion - The Delmonas
Twistin' the Night Away - Divine
Big Girls Don't Cry - Edith Massey
Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio? The Ramonetures
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Under My Thumb - Tina Turner
Gostaria de Saber (River Deep, Mountain High) - Wanderlea
Harley Davidson - Brigitte Bardot
Jukebox Baby - Alan Vega
Atomic Bongos - Lydia Lunch
Cretin Hop - The Ramones
Let's Go, Baby - Billy Eldridge
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
Don't Be Cruel - Bill Black Combo
Where's My Money? Willie Jones
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
I Can't Believe What You Say - Ike and Tina Turner
Your Phone's Off the Hook - The Ramonetures
Devil Doll - X
Esquerita and The Voola - Esquerita
Aphrodisiac - Bow Wow Wow
Ultra Twist - The Cramps
How Much Love Can One Heart Hold? Joe Perkins and The Rookies
I Want Your Love - The Cruisers
You're the One for Me - Wanda Jackson
Twisting with Bad Boy Bubbles - Shuggie Smith and The Cajuns
Dance with Me, Henry - Ann-Margret
I Will Follow Him - Little Peggy March
Big Bad Boss Beat - The Teen Beats
Woo-Hoo - The Rock-A-Teens

Further reading: 

Did you know Lobotomy Room now has its own official Facebook page? Like and follow it if you dare!

Read about all the previous antics at Lobotomy Rooms to date here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here , here , here and here. 

If you don't already, follow me on tumblr here. Warning - NSFW to the max!

Graham Russell's DJ'ing Résumé

/ Photo by Adrian Lourie /

I first thrust myself onto an unsuspecting world as a DJ circa 2008, gradually progressing from my public debut at a friend's birthday party to playing in a wide range of clubs, bars and even festivals, ultimately launching my own semi regular club night Lobotomy Room in 2012.

/ The first Lobotomy Room flyer by Ego Rodriguez /

Obviously I vary things a bit depending on where I’m playing, but my music policy can probably best be described as “vintage sleaze”: I like to whip together a mixture of frantic 1950s rhythm & blues (the Fifties really is my decade), desperate rock’n’roll and rockabilly, beatnik Cool Jazz, Latin exotica, lounge, twang-y surf instrumentals, sleazy titty shakers, novelty stuff and curiosities – atmospheric and obscure weird shit, basically! And I aim to keep it punk-y, confrontational and abrasive as opposed to too nostalgic, purist or soothingly retro (especially once I've had a few drinks).




My first real break was in 2008 via guest DJ’ing stints at Cockabilly (London’s only monthly queer rockabilly night for gay greasers, punks, leather boys, cry-babies, prison wives and juvenile delinquents of all ages). Cockabilly venue-hopped a lot in the early years: I managed to DJ at all of its residencies at The Moustache Bar, The Haggerston, The Dalston Superstore, The George and Dragon in Shoreditch and Bloc Bar in Camden Town.

Read about the squalid proceedings at previous Cockabilly nights here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, here, here and here.

Since 2009 I've also been the regular resident DJ at the monthly burlesque-meets-drawing class / Anti- Art School cabaret night Dr Sketchy. Emceed by cabaret aristocracy like Dusty Limits and Ophelia Bitz, Dr Sketchy originally happened three times a month at three different venues: The Paradise in Kensal Green, The Old Queen’s Head in Angel and The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in Vauxhall. These days it is once a month, solely at The RVT.

In September 2012 I DJ’d five shows a day at the Time for Tease tent at Bestival (four Time for Tease shows a day, and one Dr Sketchy show each night) to the biggest crowds I've ever played before. It was draining but exhilarating! 

At Dr Sketchy’s I've had the opportunity to work closely with the crème de la crème of striptease performers.  Over the years I've become a kind of musical advisor to some of them (I'm the "go-to" man for grinding tittyshaker instrumentals): the likes of Kiki Kaboom, Cherry Shakewell, Sophia St Villier and even Bunny Pistol in San Francisco have all incorporated songs I've recommend into their routines.

/ Above: Lobotomy Room flyer by Joe Pop /

By the end of 2012 it felt like a natural progression to venture into organising my own club night. My vision for Lobotomy Room was informed by my decades of clubbing and bar hopping, in particular by More than Vegas in London, Squeeze Box in New York and San Francisco’s Hole in the Wall Saloon. I pictured Lobotomy Room as a low brow Mondo Trasho punkabilly beer blast, with a rancid musical approach informed by John Waters soundtracks and Songs The Cramps Taught Us.

Initially I mainly alternated between two venues:  Paper Dress Vintage in Shoreditch and Ryan’s Bar in Stoke Newington (there was one memorable night at Hysteria in Dalston, too). When my Paper Dress Vintage permanently shut its Shoreditch location (another casualty of gentrification!), I felt a bit bereft. But then in summer 2015 I was invited to re-launch Lobotomy Room at a new permanent monthly home (last Friday of every month) at Dalston’s premiere Art Deco vice den Fontaine’s.  In fact, I’m in Fontaine’s Polynesian-style basement Bamboo Lounge – a Mondo Exotica Tiki paradise! The music (desperate stabs from the jukebox jungle!) is putrid, admission is free and I project vintage erotica on the big screen for your adult viewing pleasure. Come for the £6 cocktails - stay for the trashy music and dirty movies! A tawdry good time is guaranteed!

In November 2015, I diversified and instigated Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies, a free monthly film club in Fontaine’s Bamboo Lounge (last Wednesday of every month). The emphasis is on the cult, the camp and the queer, with the hope of reviving the communal (and boozy!) experience of old-school midnight movies. Some of the titles I’ve screened to date include Kitten with a Whip, Desperate Living, The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield, Valley of the Dolls and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Read Loverboy Magazine's account of a visit to Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies here. 

/ Above: Lobotomy Room flyer by Ego Rodriguez /

/ Above: Lobotomy Room flyers by Ego Rodriguez /

Read about all the previous antics at Lobotomy Rooms to date here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here , here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. 

Otherwise, I've made some fun and notable guest appearances over the years: In 2009 I DJ’d at the Christmas staff party for high-end luxury reproduction / faux-vintage lingerie boutique What Katie Did at The Paradise in Kensal Green (the night ended with Lily Allen’s friends causing a fight and the police being called!). When Sparkle Moore and Cad van Swankster, the proprietors of the chi chi vintage clothing emporium The Girl Can’t Help It had a farewell party at Ryan’s Bar before relocating to San Diego in April 2011, I was invited to be one of the featured DJs. Art Wank is Ophelia Bitz’s cabaret night centred around screening her huge collection of 1920s stag films (porn with dead people, essentially).  I was an obvious choice to DJ afterwards when she held one of these at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in February 2012.  Since then, I've appeared several times at the queer rock'n'roll night Wild Thing at The Retro Bar in Charing Cross. Read about those here, here and here. On Easter Sunday 2016 I channeled my hillbilly roots DJ'ing at The Glory's annual barn dance. 

I definitely reached a kind of acme DJ’ing at immersive cult cinema organisers The Amy Grimehouse’s 12-hour John Waters Filth Fest on 29 March 2014. DJ’ing to such a wild, freaky, trashy and appreciative crowd while scantily-clad drag queens and Divine lookalikes did stripper squats and slut drops really spoiled me.

/ Contestants of Filthiest Person competition at The Filth Fest (photo by Alex Menace) /

For more information, email me: garussell1969@gmail.com